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  #521  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2019, 12:33 AM
JAYNYC JAYNYC is offline
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Originally Posted by FlashFire926 View Post
Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here.

Phoenix's skyline is pretty dissapointing. It's also just endlessly sprawling there.
Your introduction to Obadno in 3...2...1...
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  #522  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2019, 2:38 AM
jtown,man jtown,man is offline
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Originally Posted by JAYNYC View Post
Your introduction to Obadno in 3...2...1...
LOL

I love Obadno and the dude from Detroit.


Gotta appreciate someone who loves the hell out of where they live.
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  #523  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2019, 4:00 AM
FlashFire926 FlashFire926 is offline
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
Welcome! Sounds like you'll fit right in
Thanks.
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  #524  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2019, 4:59 AM
JAYNYC JAYNYC is offline
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Originally Posted by jtown,man View Post
LOL

I love Obadno and the dude from Detroit.


Gotta appreciate someone who loves the hell out of where they live.
Nothing wrong with Phoenix IMO. I can deal with the heat, and am a fan of its desert aesthetic and lifestyle.

That said, its skyline is terribly underwhelming in every category imaginable (height, design, density, etc.) for a metro area of its size. There are no two ways about it.
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  #525  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2019, 12:10 AM
Shawn Shawn is offline
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Just to get this out of the way, I’m neutral on the Phoenix skyline. I don’t have a height fetish, so the lack of tall towers doesn’t bother me, but I do love built form density, and it’s here I find Phoenix to be woefully lacking.

But I want to point this out: some economies don’t need towers. What types of companies rent large floor plates in 30+ floor office buildings? Finance, white collar head offices, service companies with the revenue to justify the overhead, etc. This isn’t Phoenix’s DNA.

Cambridge Mass as of Q2 2019 has over 27 million sq feet of class A office & lab space, with vacancy rates of 0.8%. Another 2 million sq feet will come online over the next six months. That’s more class A sq footage than many major cities’ downtowns have. Yet the Cambridge skyline, even in booming Kendall Square, has nothing over 350 feet tall; biotech labs need HVAC and other system support to such an extent that building over about 10 floors becomes prohibitively expensive.
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  #526  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2019, 7:38 PM
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Jonboy1983 Jonboy1983 is offline
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Yes, for a while Pittsburgh has been a rather woeful place in terms of its dying population - not just declining, but literally dying. Right now, Pittsburgh seems to be turning the corner. It's getting a younger population moving in as it continues to reinvent itself as a tech and meds hub. You're going to still see deaths hamper the population numbers somewhat for at least another census count, but I figure that by 2030 or shortly after that, Pittsburgh's population is going to start to show noticeable growth again for the first time in at least half a century.

In terms of the city's skyline, while it is a bummer it hasn't gotten any proposed new buildings of 600 feet tall or more lately, it's still a rather impressive skyline for a city of roughly 300,000. It has a rather nice mix of older gothic, art deco and other turn-of-the-century architecture to the mid century/international designs we see in buildings like Gateway Center and the US Steel Building to the post-modern (PPG Place, One Oxford Centre) and 21st century buildings like 3 PNC Plaza and the Tower at PNC Plaza. That said, while we're not seeing much in the way of 40-plus story buildings proposed, we are seeing newer development taking shape that will continue to bring in younger people.
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  #527  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2019, 7:48 PM
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JManc JManc is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
Just to get this out of the way, I’m neutral on the Phoenix skyline. I don’t have a height fetish, so the lack of tall towers doesn’t bother me, but I do love built form density, and it’s here I find Phoenix to be woefully lacking.

But I want to point this out: some economies don’t need towers. What types of companies rent large floor plates in 30+ floor office buildings? Finance, white collar head offices, service companies with the revenue to justify the overhead, etc. This isn’t Phoenix’s DNA.

Cambridge Mass as of Q2 2019 has over 27 million sq feet of class A office & lab space, with vacancy rates of 0.8%. Another 2 million sq feet will come online over the next six months. That’s more class A sq footage than many major cities’ downtowns have. Yet the Cambridge skyline, even in booming Kendall Square, has nothing over 350 feet tall; biotech labs need HVAC and other system support to such an extent that building over about 10 floors becomes prohibitively expensive.
You can't really compare Phoenix to Cambridge either, even though Phoenix is huge; Cambridge is a major hub for pharma, education, tech and the start-up industry. I can't think of one thing Phoenix is known for other than University of Phoenix and call centers.
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  #528  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2019, 8:08 PM
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pj3000 pj3000 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
Just to get this out of the way, I’m neutral on the Phoenix skyline. I don’t have a height fetish, so the lack of tall towers doesn’t bother me, but I do love built form density, and it’s here I find Phoenix to be woefully lacking.

But I want to point this out: some economies don’t need towers. What types of companies rent large floor plates in 30+ floor office buildings? Finance, white collar head offices, service companies with the revenue to justify the overhead, etc. This isn’t Phoenix’s DNA.
Yeah, I'm not height crazy either... much more into human-scaled urban neighborhoods. Obviously, Phoenix, as you say, is "woefully lacking" in both though.

I think Phoenix is just young and doesn't possess the historic industrial and resultant financial prominence which produces the types of buildings that impressively define a skyline.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JManc View Post
You can't really compare Phoenix to Cambridge either, even though Phoenix is huge; Cambridge is a major hub for pharma, education, tech and the start-up industry. I can't think of one thing Phoenix is known for other than University of Phoenix and call centers.
And Cambridge isn't the primary "CBD" of its region either obviously. It's the center of those exact industries which generally do not utilize very tall office buildings for their operations (like Shawn is suggesting).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonboy1983 View Post
In terms of the city's skyline, while it is a bummer it hasn't gotten any proposed new buildings of 600 feet tall or more lately, it's still a rather impressive skyline for a city of roughly 300,000.
We all know that 300k city limits population number is totally irrelevant in terms of an indicator of skyline "impressiveness" though.
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  #529  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2019, 8:33 PM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
You can't really compare Phoenix to Cambridge either, even though Phoenix is huge; Cambridge is a major hub for pharma, education, tech and the start-up industry. I can't think of one thing Phoenix is known for other than University of Phoenix and call centers.
Some of the boosters here think we have more a robust economy beyond real estate, call centers and some tech development. Silicon Valley we're not, and I'm constantly worried about our lack of a diversified economy.

There's also little civic investment here compared to other cities. I grew up in Cincinnati (home of Kroger and Proctor & Gamble). Their names are all over Greater Cincinnati, be it at cultural centers, education and hospital wings. Apollo Group (University of Phoenix) and PetSmart are probably the two biggest companies headquartered in the Phoenix area, but good luck finding anything (aside from a confusing naming rights deal with the Cardinals' stadium) benefiting from their investment.
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  #530  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2019, 9:30 PM
lio45 lio45 is offline
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Originally Posted by jtown,man View Post
LOL

I love Obadno and the dude from Detroit.


Gotta appreciate someone who loves the hell out of where they live.
It's true that Obadno and The North One are very very similar on that aspect... even though the latter would find Phoenix sprawl disgusting and hates the idea that modern Americans might prefer the Sunbelt to inner city Detroit living.
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